Introduction to watercolor brushes
Brushes for watercolor painting are shorter handled than oil and acrylic brushes and are available in a vast range of shapes and sizes for every kind of painting approach. Small brushes are useful when painting detail and other intricate marks while large brushes will hold more liquid and work well for broader brushstrokes, including washes for skies. Traditionally, sable hair is often used because it holds lots of liquid, but today there are plenty of synthetic alternatives, as well as brushes that have a blend of natural and synthetic hair.
For a watercolor beginner, a brush set with a variety of shapes and sizes is a great introduction. This will get you started and as you paint more you will begin to discover which brushes are your favourites. You can then build on your collection of watercolor brushes with the right shapes and sizes for your way of working. The price of brush sets varies wildly. They start at under £10 and can go up to hundreds of pounds. The highest quality natural hair brushes (such as sable or squirrel) are the most expensive, while synthetic brushes offer a hardwearing alternative.
Watercolor wash brushes
The most popular watercolor painting methods require huge amounts of dilute color – the brush is loaded with watercolor paint and water and applied to the paper in very thin washes. For very watery watercolor techniques the watercolor painter requires a brush with good liquid holding capacity.
Natural hair brushes are superior to synthetic hair brushes for liquid holding capacity. Natural hairs have a central structure known as the Medulla. This is covered by a thick layer known as the cortex, which is in turn encased within the cuticle, which is made up of lots of tiny scale-like fibers. The hollows and indentations found on the surface of the cuticle pick up water and pigment really well, which is why natural hair is considered the best for liquid-holding capacity – once the brush is pressed against the paper being painted on, all the liquid and pigment is deposited onto the surface. Soft fine hair is particularly favoured for wash applications as it has less of a ‘snap’, and will create gentle fluid marks with no crisp edges.
Squirrel Wash Brushes
Squirrel hair is often used for wash brushes – each individual hair tapers to a fine point and is wider in the middle, this contributes to the liquid holding capacity. The fattest part of a round brush is often referred to as the ‘belly’ of the brush. The tapering of the squirrel hair to a fine point means that the brush itself will also taper to a fine point, making squirrel mop brushes perfect not only for broad washes of color, but also for finer detail work (lines and dots).
Cheaper squirrel hair brushes that have a blunt tip that does not taper to a fine point may have been made from squirrel hair that has already been cut in the past, and these are not suitable for detailed work. Squirrel mop brushes are bound in a quill ferrule with twisted brass threads to replicate the traditional brush manufacturing processes of the past. As well as round mop brushes that taper to a point in this way, squirrel hair is also used to make oval shaped washes such as the Jackson’s English Oval Wash, and bright/flat brushes, allowing the artist to make broad rectangular marks on their work.
Most squirrel hair for brushes comes from Canada or Russia. The Kazan squirrel hair is brown-black in color, and is the finest variety of Squirrel or Petit Gris hair. Squirrel hair brushes are incredibly soft, and are so soft they are often also used in make-up brushes. The downside of this characteristic is that there is next to no ‘snap’ or ‘spring’ in the brush hairs, they don’t ‘ping’ back into place in the way that a synthetic brush might, and so it is not as good for dramatic or punchy marks, and is not the kind of hair you would use if you were looking for a brush that enabled you to have full control over your painting. Something like a spotter, where the brush hairs are very short, and therefore have greater spring anyway (irrespective of what hairs are used) allows you to have full control of where you paint goes on to your work, and is ideal for detail work.
Sable brushes
One big advantage of working with sable hair is its ability to hold a lot of liquid, which is useful for broad washes of color. The reason why sable hair holds a lot of liquid is down to the soft, fine hairs. You can easily see this when you immerse a sable brush into a glass of water. It may take a few seconds of moving the brush in the water, but soon enough the hairs of a round brush will fan out; the hairs are so soft and fine that they are lifted by the water. This also means that water can easily be held between each hair as the brush is lifted from the water – hence the impressive water holding ability.
What is a Kolinsky Sable Brush?
A Kolinsky is a different animal to a sable. It is a weasel from the mink family native to Asia, whose tail hairs are used in the manufacture of superior watercolor and make-up brushes. Male Kolinsky hair is used for the very best Kolinsky brushes because of its superior strength, slenderness (which contributes to liquid holding capacity), and resilience (which contributes to brush lifespan). The majority of Kolinsky brushes available on the market will use some female kolinsky hair in the mix, at a ratio of around 60:40 male to female.
Although Kolinsky hair brushes are of a higher quality, those brushes who mention ‘Tajmyr’ or ‘Tobolsky’ before ‘Kolinsky’ in their description are referring to where those particular Kolinsky are from. Kolinskies from the River Tobol (Kazakhstan) and from Tajmyr in Siberia are known to possess hairs with stunning elasticity with extraordinary fine tips – which make them incredibly well suited to delicate and detailed watercolor painting. They hold sharp points and achieve crisp edges as well as maintaining excellent color-holding capacity.
Other natural hair brushes for watercolor
Goat hair is an inexpensive natural hair that is also suitable for wash brushes. The low cost of the brushes is thanks to the wide availability of the hair. Goat hair brushes are most likely to vary hugely in terms of the quality available as many manufacturers will make and sell goat hair brushes made from the second cut, i.e., the hair will not taper to a fine point and the result is that the brush head will spray and have a rounded end. Many of the very cheapest watercolor brush sets for schools will contain a goat hair brush that looks like this.
On the other hand, a goat hair brush made from the first cut and from good quality hair will taper beautifully, and will be considered a very close substitute to the finest squirrel hair brushes. Goat hair is soft yet resilient. The majority of goat hair used is white, but Winsor & Newton and Daler Rowney also offer dark goat hair brushes. The painter Ron Ranson, famous for his use of the goat hair hake brush in his work, once found that many Chinese hake brushes available on the market were fluffy when new, and required a lot of wearing in before the hairs of the brush possessed the sleekness the sought in his hake brushes. His own hake brush as made by Pro Arte claims to not need any wearing in, and is suitable for painting in bold, impressionistic techniques.
Badger hair used in the manufacturing of watercolor brushes is mostly sourced from China. A high quality badger hair brush, i.e., one that tapers to a very fine point, can be as good in quality as a squirrel or Kolinsky sable brush. The finer the point that each hair tapers to, the more elastic the spring, and the softer the hair. A good badger hair brush will have hairs that go from pale to dark in color along each individual hair, whereas a lesser quality badger hair brush will appear a more uniform grey along the length of the hair. They will also not taper to as fine a point.
The development of synthetic hair
The use of animal hair in artist brushes has developed over many centuries and, over time, the industry has learnt what hairs are best for each specific application of color. The use of synthetic filaments started in earnest during the 1970s and is now the most commonly used brush hair.
The history of Synthetic Brush Filaments
The first synthetic filaments for brushmaking were developed by the company Dupont in the US during the 1950s, mainly for the decorating industry. Their development was given urgent impetus when the USA banned the import of Chinese bristle. The primary filament used was nylon (brand name, Tynex) that was extruded, mechanically tapered, and then tipped and flagged to resemble pig bristle.
Today, nylon is still widely used for paintbrushes. But for artist and cosmetic brushes, this filament is not a good alternative to natural hair, as it is too stiff and has no fine tips.
The breakthrough for the artist brush market started in the 1970s, when Dupont found a way of chemically tapering polyester filaments. But, as the market was seen as being too small, Dupont sold the patent to Toray Industries of Japan. Toray developed the process with input from Japanese brush companies, notably Takamoto (who used their brand name, Taklon). The only other company to produce chemically tapered filaments at that time was Teijin. Because their filament was slightly different, it didn’t infringe on Toray’s patent rights. During the 1980s, Toray licensed the patent to a Korean company, Kolon, but, once the patent expired in the 1990s, many other firms started production.
Over the past few years, the industry has become heavily involved with the use of synthetics, as many customers feel synthetics are more hygienic than animal hair, and more ethically acceptable. Artist brushes need to be able to apply a spectrum of media, from very wet to quite dry mediums which has led to difficulties replicating animal hair. We are now able to add many features to synthetics (different diameters, taper ratios, crimps, hollows etc) which means it’s now far easier to replicate animal hairs. However, animal hairs have certain attributes that still make it problematic to totally replicate them.
The Challenges of Replicating Natural Hair
The real holy grail is trying to replicate Kolinsky sable that has unique characteristics which make it the best hair for use in fine artist brushes.
An artist is looking for various facets in a brush:
- A fine point
- Retention of the point
- Paint/water holding and release
- Strength/snap
- Durability and control
Kolinsky is the only hair that manages to do all this well, due to the unique structure of the hair. It has very fine cuticles along the follicle which control the pick-up and release of paint. It also possesses a belly, meaning the hair is thin at both the root and tip end. So, when the hair is put into a brush ferrule, the belly sits in the middle, this gives the required strength/snap. It is now possible to create synthetics with scales on it but to date, many believe that nothing matches pure Kolinsky.
In many brush catalogues, you will see synthetic replacements for many types of hair, such as mongoose, badger, squirrel, hog bristle etc — all these replacements are made using similar polyester filaments, but are adjusted to resemble the animal hair. So, for example, a mongoose imitation hair is dyed five to six times, to resemble the color, and a thicker diameter is used to resemble the hair’s strength. Heavier gauges of synthetic brushes are able to replicate the hollow core that natural mongoose hair has. This acts as a well for the paint, but it is harder to reproduce this hollow in lighter gauges.
Another hair that is not straight-forward to imitate is hog bristle. The best type of hog bristle comes from South West China and is known as Chungking. It is very stiff with fine flags that make it perfect for oil painting. In order to replicate the bristle, a heavy gauge fibre is required and then it needs to be either ground, or mechanically tipped, to split the ends open.
Squirrel hair is the softest of all hairs used, and the challenge for filament producers is to extrude an as-fine-as-possible filament that still has enough strength to make a brush. A very light wave is added to the extrusion, and anti-static agents are added to stop the fine filament from splaying. This creates a very suitable alternative to squirrel.
Natural hairs are becoming more and more expensive as suppliers are becoming scarcer, meaning more artists are moving towards using synthetics. As this happens, the investment in the technology that is developing synthetic replicas is increasing. This means the quality of synthetics is only going to get even better in the coming years.
Synthetic Brushes for Precision, Spring, Detail, and Expressive Marks
Synthetic hair will not have the scale-like cuticle layer that natural hair possesses, although some of the recent developments in synthetic hair manufacture have attempted to replicate this. The outcome of this is that synthetic hair brushes simply do not hold as much liquid as natural hair brushes. However synthetic hair brushes do have their place in watercolor painting. They possess a greater spring, they are more resilient and if looked after, have a much greater lifespan. Their characteristics make them suitable for watercolor painting techniques that demand greater control, and crisper, bolder marks. Toray hair is a very fine nylon hair which is favoured by many artists for detail and crisp marks. Pro Arte’s Prolene hair is another very popular type of synthetic hair – it is a brown glossy nylon hair, which is soft and fine, and has impressive spring and resilience. Similarly, the Jackson’s Studio Synthetic brushes possess these qualities, and after trying them out for the first time, a lot of artists see the advantages of using both natural and synthetic hair brushes in their painting practice.
Mixed Hair Brushes
Mixed hair synthetic-natural brushes are more affordable than 100% natural hair brushes, but they also offer a greater snap to the brush, and are more likely to have a longer lifespan. There are also some mix brushes that use different natural hairs, either for cost reasons or to take advantage of the varying qualities that each hair possesses.
Watercolor Brush Shapes
A variety of different shaped and sized watercolor brushes in your paintbox will equip you for creating paintings with a diverse range of marks. Having the freedom to select the brushes that best suit the marks you wish to make will also enable you to make the paintings that you want to make - full of self expression and vibrancy.
Round Brushes
Round brushes are formed of a cylinder of hairs that taper to a point at the end. Round brushes are the most popular and most common shaped watercolor brush. The smaller sizes are particularly well suited to fine detail, the larger sizes for washes, and all are good for lines of varying thicknesses. The size of the marks made with a round brush can be manipulated by the amount of pressure applied when pressing the brush to the surface being worked on. Retractable travel watercolor brushes tend to be round in their shape.
Flat
Another versatile brush shape is the flat. A larger flat brush is ideal for washes. When painting with watercolor, this brush is often thicker so it can pick up a larger amount of pigment and can be wetted before picking up the paint, so that thinner layers of pigment can be applied to a surface quickly. Wash brushes typically have a squared side edge, meaning they are also capable of creating controlled strokes with a solid edge when used with opaque pigments.
Smaller flat brushes utilize a longer bristle length to lay flat patches of color smoothly, achieving a squared edge. They’re also excellent for producing long, smooth strokes allowing for a sense of gesture and motion in the application paint.
Liner
Liner or rigger brushes resemble round brushes except much finer, usually with longer hair. The longer hair allows the brush to carry more pigment, creating long and flowing lines, and is the perfect way to add detail and dynamics to your work.
Mop
Mop brushes are soft-bristled with a rounded head. When used with watercolor, they’re an effective brush shape for covering large areas of the surface with thin paint, referred to as a wash.
Angled
Angled brushes are one of the most versatile shapes in a painter’s studio, although sometimes an overlooked brush when bought as part of a set, their inclusion is both helpful and necessary.
Their shape allows for quick transitions between thin and thick lines, making them an optimal choice for people interested in painting the natural landscape or other organic material. Whether you want to create motion in blades of grass through flicking your brush at an angle, block in an area of color or create texture, angled brushes can be very useful.
Additionally, their shape can be helpful in transitioning from a desk to an easel. An angled brush allows for a greater sense of control when working at an upright surface, affording you comfort when utilizing the fine end of the brush for detail work or text.
Dagger and Dagger Striper
Dagger brushes are shaped like a filbert with half of the bristles missing at an angle. They’re particularly useful for creating teardrop shapes, moving from a wide rounded edge up to a fine point.
They’re often used in botanical painting, helping to create shapes in flowers and leaves with a natural sense of flow. You can load a dagger brush up with multiple colors at a time and drag it across a surface to create expressive shapes, particularly useful in trying to capture a sense of motion in something like a still life. With that being said, dagger brushes are also a great shape for creating abstract work using multiple colors. Their unique shape means that you can load pigment in different areas of the brush and pull single marks that introduce new colors throughout the line.
A dagger striper is essentially the same shape except featuring a more defined angle of cut on the bristles. These brushes, as the name would suggest, are excellent when looking to paint lines or stripes.
Stippler
Stippler brushes feature short, rounded heads and come in a variety of densities dependent on the hair used to make the brush. Often used in painting foliage or fur, stippler brushes are a shape most associated with creating texture. Used in a dabbing motion, this shape is able to create dense, wiry textures dependent on the colors used as well as the speed.
Hake flat brushes
For ‘fast and loose’ painting approaches often associated with Chinese painting, where brush marks are made economically whilst still serving the purpose of describing the subject as fully as possible. Usually made with very soft white goat hair. Also useful for washes and backgrounds.
Travel brushes for watercolor
Watercolor painting is especially well suited for painting outdoors because the kit is small and portable and the work dries before you need to pack it up to take it home. A collapsible brush usually converts from a short pocket size to a longer brush ready-to-use by reversing the cover that is over the hairs to attach as the handle. Not only does this save space but it protects the fine hairs of the brush. A few brushes are ‘retractable’, that is the end pulls back inside the handle rather than moving the cover to become the handle, but ‘retractable’ is an accepted term for all types of travel brushes that convert from short to full size.
Most brush manufacturers have a retractable brush in their range. Pocket brushes by some of the very best brush makers include DaVinci, Escoda, Jackson’s, Isabey, Winsor & Newton, and Pro Arte. If your brush has a good point and a full belly you can often use one size brush for a variety of marks and washes so a size 6, 8, or 10 can do double duty as both a wash and fine line brush. There are even handy brushes that store a small amount of water in the hollow handle, so you’ve no need for a bottle of water – Water Brushes.
How do I clean my watercolor brushes?
Watercolor brushes are most commonly made from synthetic, sable, or squirrel hair. Because they are so soft they require more delicate handling, particularly natural sable and squirrel brushes.
Watercolor brushes can be thoroughly cleaned by removing excess watercolor or gouache with a cloth before rinsing in a jar of water. As with other mediums, blot the brush and rinse until there is no more color coming out of the brush.
You shouldn’t need to use brush soap after every watercolor painting session. In fact, natural sable and squirrel brushes contain natural oils which can be stripped by frequent cleaning, particularly with regular household dish soap. When you do use brush soap, be sure to rinse it out thoroughly, as any soap product can destroy the sizing of watercolor paper.
Tips for Taking Care of Watercolor Brushes
- Avoid leaving the brush soaking in water. It can crack the handle and loosen the ferrule, and the brush hairs could get bent.
- Some pigments might stain your brush even after thorough cleaning, but this doesn’t affect how the brush can be used.
- Reshape the brush while it is wet. It is normal for natural sable watercolor brushes to splay out slightly when dry, but should come to a point when wet.
Glossary
Masstone - The appearance of the color of the paint as it comes from the tube.
Undertone - Undertone is the bias of a color when applied across a surface in a thin film, e.g. Ultramarine Blue would be said to have a reddish-blue undertone.
Color Strength - Another term used to define color strength is saturation. Color strength essentially refers to the ratio of pigment to binder, it is a description of how vibrant/brilliant/clean the color appears.
Opacity/Transparency - Is the measure of how much light is able to pass through the pigment particles. Opaque colors allow only very small quantities of light through the color whereas transparent colors allow a lot of light through the color. The difference is that opaque colors will look flatter and will cover over any marks that may have been made underneath. Transparent colors will show the marks made underneath, and may appear to have more texture.
Traditionally watercolor painting is a transparent painting method and conventionally it is the white of the paper being painted on that acts as the white in your work…however it is now common practice for many watercolor painters to use white gouache or Chinese white watercolor in a watercolor painting, often as finishing highlights and touches. White gouache can be tinted with transparent watercolor and used in watercolor painting; it is often referred to as ‘body color’ due to its opacity. Blending the fusing of 2 color planes with one another in such a way that there are no hard edges. In watercolor this is easily done with a wet brush, dipped in either water or gum arabic. If watercolor is allowed to thoroughly dry then blending is made a little more difficult – the edges may be harder to lift. In instances such as this, a blending medium can be mixed with the color to prolong the amount of time that the color is wet, and make blending a lot easier.
Dry Brush Technique - When watercolor paint that is relatively dry, and in the least ‘gummy’, is applied with a dry brush to paper. The effect is chalky in appearance, and saturated in color, and often makes for a dramatic contrast against more delicate, watery, watercolor washes. A very effective and dramatic method for creating textured surfaces within watercolor painting.
Watercolor Easels - Watercolor easels often tilt to allow painters to work flat (preventing washes and large amounts of water from running). However some watercolorists may find that working upright works for their preferred technique.
Flat Wash - The use of a single diluted color to cover the white of the paper in a relatively unsaturated and uniform manner. Washes are usually applied with a broad brush with natural hair that can hold a lot of fluid, such as a squirrel mop. Painters may choose to work over the wash once the wash is dry, or to work into the wet wash. By doing this one is said to be painting ‘wet-on-wet’ and the result is that the colors bleed into the layers onto which they have been applied. Flat washes can be applied on to dry or damp paper.
Fugitive Color - Refers to non-lightfast paints, such as Opera Rose. They fade, or distort in other ways, when exposed to sunlight. Generally it is advised to stick to colors that have been rated of excellent or very good lightfastness (they may also have the classification of being ‘I’ or ‘II’) if you are intending on exhibiting or displaying work on a wall, as opposed to keeping it in a book or portfolio.
Glazed Wash - A glazed wash is when a dilute color is applied across the surface of a watercolor painting that has been left to dry completely – the result of doing this is to tint the whole surface with the color of your wash. Someone who decides to apply a glazed wash over a work would therefore have to consider the influence the chosen glaze hue would have over the colors that have been worked with previously. Once dry the artist has the option to work over the top once more.
Gum Arabic - A gum that is extracted from two species of the acacia tree, which is used as a binder in the manufacture of watercolor paint. Can also be purchased separately – it increases transparency and gloss.
Masking Fluid - Masking fluid is sometimes known as liquid frisket and is used to mask off areas of your work. It is painted on like tippex (you can apply it using a brush, a ruling pen, a Colour Shaper, or anything else!) and once dry you can then work in watercolor over the top. A good example of when masking fluid may come in handy is if you are applying color on to a painting of a leaf, but you wish to keep the veins white – you would then paint the veins on with the masking fluid, allow it to dry and then apply your color over the top. Providing the masking fluid is applied in dry paper and is left to dry completely before working over the top, (and the watercolor applied over the top is also left to dry completely) the masking fluid should peel off with relative ease, just coax off a corner with a Colour Shaper or the end of your brush and the rest should come off by pulling it with your fingers. If it feels as if it is very stuck, a handy little tip is to roll up a ball of dried masking fluid between your finger and thumb and use this to coax the masking fluid off – the stickiness works wonders.